ANDY WARHOL: AMERICA

New York City, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 224 pages. Retrospective collection of black-and-white photographs, with accompanying text. Andy Warhol's finest achievement as a photographer and reporter. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions, particularly the Softcover Edition. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original. Most copies were printed as paperbacks only. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Andy Warhol and Barbara Richer: Oversize-volume format. Cream cloth boards with titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs and text by Andy Warhol. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. In pictorial DJ with white titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents Andy Warhol's "America". His response to (and implicit rejection of) Robert Frank's "The Americans" (1959) . A celebrity-obsessed "take" on the very same America that Robert Frank traversed before him, and found sad and wanting, this is a Warholian celebration in response to Frank's elegy. Like Frank, Warhol travelled the length and breadth of continental USA. His running commentary reflects the "start-stop" journey in gossipy prose. No one considers Andy to be a great writer because he isn't. But no one can deny that his writing is inimitably his alone. That's why Penguin reissued the book as a Modern Classic. "The thing is, if you're a celebrity yourself, everybody expects you to know all the great people, and you don't want to let them down. I've met 80% of the people you'd think I've met, and the other 20%, I'm dying to meet" (Andy Warhol) . Warhol was an anomaly of American entertainment/celebrity culture: He was a diehard fan of celebrities who was (as he himself admits) a celebrity. His fans were, by the same token, many of the same celebrities. As this collection shows, his very first act when he met a celebrity was not to shake his or her hand, but, always camera-ready, to take a photograph. So the 80% are all here. An absolute "must-have" title for Andy Warhol collectors. This title is a late-modern photography classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have very serious flaws or are the Softcover Edition. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with black-and-white plates. One of the greatest artists of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ANDY WARHOL TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0060154772.